Like millions of American parents this fall, my wife and I decided to homeschool our children this fall.

In March when schools shut down across Massachusetts and much of the country, the school where our daughters were enrolled was just starting spring break. We canceled our travel plans and used the two weeks to try and prepare for life’s new reality, blind to the dominoes that would fall and lead us to homeschool.

We were fortunate that we could redo our work schedules so that we could support our then five-year-old children, even as we realized my wife’s food business would be shuttered for some time. We built a strong routine and rhythm so our daughters could experience some security and predictability amidst the chaos.

As believers in the importance of active learning that is personalized in which the students build executive function skills, we watched with lots of empathy, but also dismay, as our girls’ Montessori school established gradually a larger set of Zoom sessions each day that emphasized whole-class learning over the personalized-learning experiences the girls had enjoyed pre-Covid.